The Best in Online Rudeness: ‘Better get the catsup a**hole’

In most forms of journalism today they tell you never to read the commenters. At worst, it’ll kill your spirit. At best, it’ll ruin your day. But in this feature, we say throw caution to the wind: read the goddamn commenters. The nutballs, misinterpreters, fans and friends. Read them all. Here we take the temperature of commenters around the net. The more rude the better. Occasionally we’ll cleanse with some online kindness.

The players: Chris and Kate.

Who they are: Chris is @CK_CtrlFL from Melbourne, Fla.; Kate is @LeftsideAnne, a self-described hippie liberal and aspiring comedian in Los Angeles. According to Kate’s website bio, she “has been pissed off for almost 10 years now and has decided to speak up and not mince words.” She’s a voracious reader of ThinkProgress. She hates “teabaggers.”

Instigated by: The whole flap between Chris and Kate began with Illya Shapiro, a senior fellow in Constitutional Studies at Washington’s Cato Institute. From his Cato bio: “Before joining Cato, he was a special assistant/advisor to the Multi-National Force in Iraq on rule of law issues and practiced international, political, commercial, and antitrust litigation at Patton Boggs and Cleary Gottlieb.” It says he also regularly contributes commentary to The Colbert Report. He speaks four languages: Russian, French, Spanish, and is “proficient” in Portuguese and Italian.